Tree Story by Anna Oakes
With literally thousands to choose from, you and your family can find the perfect Christmas tree this year. Families from across the state and Southeast travel hundreds of miles to our mountains for their tannenbaums, but High Country residents enjoy the privilege of living right in the center of North Carolina’s Choose and Cut Capital.

If you’ve never experienced the joy of selecting your own real Christmas tree, make this the year you start a new tradition. Chopping down your own tree is an excuse to spend a little time with your family, roommates or friends, a reason to bundle up and feel the cool air sweep against your cheeks, and a chance to set foot on something other than asphalt and concrete. Plus, you’ll meet hardworking farmers and put money into the local economy at a time when it’s sorely needed.
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Ski story by Sam Calhoun
Not once, but twice before Thanksgiving the High Country has woken up to a blanket of fresh snow on the ground, including this week when Sugar Mountain Resort took the cue from Old Man Winter and opened for the season on Monday, November 17. For all the people who are in denial about the start of winter, there’s no weather report left to dispute—it’s cold, it has been snowing, and if the opening of all four of the High Country’s ski slopes tells us anything, winter is definitely here.
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Story by Kathleen McFadden
Two rezoning cases were on the agenda for Boone’s Quarterly Public Hearing on November 13. ASU requested a change in the zoning of the rock building on the corner of Rivers and Depot streets from B-1, Central Business District, to U-1, University District. Boone Five, LLC requested rezoning a tract on Highway 105 from a split B-3, General Business, and R-1, Single-Family Residential, to CDB-3, Conditional District General Business.

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By Ronald Grover Ronald Grover
To the 1 million viewers of Bravo’s reality show Flipping Out, Jeff Lewis is the acerbic, demanding, and sometimes petulant face of real estate speculation. In the program’s first two seasons (already in reruns), Lewis turned a hefty profit buying and updating homes to sell in Los Angeles’ toniest neighborhoods. At the start of the year he sold a 1,900-square-foot house to Lost star Dominic Monaghan for $1.6 million.

But as the cameras stopped shooting seven months ago, the housing market went from slowed to stalled, leaving the 38-year-old speculator, as he says, “paralyzed.” Lewis has been mired for months in a dispute over the boundaries of a $2.5 million property. A deal to buy a house fell apart when Countrywide Financial (CFC.) foreclosed on the seller. Until recently, Lewis lived in a 700-square-foot home, tight quarters for an entourage that includes two cats, three dogs, and, during working hours, a housekeeper and two assistants. “These are not great times, and people are suffering,” says Lewis, a self-professed “working millionaire” who has flipped more than 40 homes.

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By Frank Ruggiero
Appalachian State University is hoping to hit the airwaves with a new broadcasting center, though it will need a green light from the Boone Town Council.

University officials appeared before the council and Boone Area Planning Commission Thursday, Nov. 13, at the town’s quarterly public hearing, requesting a zoning change for property in the central business district.

The university requested to change the zoning classification of the former Alliance Bible Fellowship building, located at the corner of Depot and Rivers streets, from B-1 (central business) to U-1 (university) to establish the George G. Beasley Broadcasting Complex.

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By Scott Nicholson
George Gilleland is president of the High Country Home Builders Association and owner of The Hardwood Company in Boone, selling wood products and other building materials. He said while the construction market has cooled a little, it’s still far from doom and gloom.

“I think we’re doing better than the national average,” Gilleland said. “People are still buying high-end second homes. Our average home prices are still up there.”

Click here to read the Watauga Democrat article.

Written by John Boyle
The lingering drought in much of North Carolina has resulted in the U.S. Department of Agriculture declaring 59 counties, including nearly all of Western North Carolina, disaster areas.
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That means local farmers who can prove significant crop losses may be eligible for low-interest loans or other payments. This is the second year in a row that drought has severely impacted crops, with corn and eastern tobacco crops taking the worst hits this year.

If you think the drought is no longer an issue, just ask a local farmer.

Click here to read the article from the Asheville Citizen Times

Story by Kathleen McFadden
Researchers at Colorado State University released an economic study this week stating that the creation of the proposed Grandfather National Scenic Area (GNSA) would attract an estimated 1.5 million visitors a year, result in the creation of 724 new jobs and generate an additional $38.4 million in annual revenue for Avery, Caldwell and Watauga counties.

The proposed scenic area would encompass 25,500 acres of the 510,119-acre Pisgah National Forest along the Blue Ridge Parkway from Grandfather Mountain to Blowing Rock and would apply scenic protections only to public lands currently managed by the U.S. Forest Service.

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Grandfather Mountain President Crae Morton announced this week that based on a recent survey by Doug Suttles of Suttles Surveying in Marion, N.C., Grandfather Mountain will list the elevation of its summit as 5,946 feet.

This number is 18 feet lower than the elevation of 5,964 feet that Grandfather Mountain has been using in its promotional materials since opening as a scenic travel attraction in 1952. The higher number originally came from North Carolina Geologic and Economic Survey Bulletin No. 27 entitled “Altitudes in North Carolina” published in 1917.

Click here for the article in High Country Press

Story by Kathleen McFadden
“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

So cautioned Craig Lewis of the Lawrence Group at the closing presentation of the Boone 2030 planning charrette last week.

What Lewis meant is that the collective vision of what Boone can become won’t be accomplished in one fell swoop or even in the next several years. The vision is a long-term one, looking ahead two decades from right now, and the only way to reach it is in incremental steps.

Those incremental steps are the “good” that Lewis referred to, with the “perfect” being the ideal vision.

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Story by David Brewer
Sheri Baker, owner of Dragonfly Theater & Pub, quit her job 2.5 years ago to focus her work and attention on Boone’s new movie theater and pub. The Dragonfly Theater and Pub is absolutely the only venue in the High Country that has, in four months, hosted major motion pictures, independent movies, live concerts, church meetings, fundraisers, multimedia events, political debate viewing parties, Monday Night Football and a beer tasting. To say that the Dragonfly is versatile would be a bit of an understatement.

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Click here to visit the Dragonfly website

ps. EDITOR- I recently held my sons 5th birthday party at Dragonfly and it was great!  They let us bring in our DVD and served all the children lunch and popcorn.  Best of all, the cost was very reasonable.

We feel a great deal of gratitude for the way our site has been embraced.  Please forgive the recent lapse in coverage.  We look forward to making good on our promise to be your best source for real estate news in the North Carolina mountains.  Stay tuned for much more news on the dirt.blog.

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